Lima Being

Well, I´m in Lima, Peru...  integrating the experiences from the time I spent in the Amazon.  Julie flies in tomorrow (actually only a few hours away... 2 in the AM) and then we travel to Nazca, Paracas, Arequipa, and end up in Cuzco for my 50th birthday on July 5th.

I´d love to write more about the time in the amazon with mother ayahuasca.  what an experience.  Unfortunately, I haven´t yet mastered the latin spanish keyboards and their unique key arrangements....  and so it takes a little longer to write and lots of editing and corrections.

Briefly, I went to Iquitos and then was ferried to Howard Lawler (don Otorongo Blanco)´s SpiritQuest Shamanic Retreat some forty minutes upriver. Great place. Amazing food.

The ayuahuascero, don Rober, was amazing... he held the space strongly and with integrity. I have a lot of respect for his work (he has to smoke an amazing amount of tobacco in the course of his job) and his voice as he sang the icaros was amazing.  I recorded some, and so when I get a chance to download them, I´ll post them so that you can hear a sample.  Fortunately, I recorded the last of the five ceremonies and most of the purging was complete by then, so the icaros are without the symphonic accompaniment of barfing and calls for ¨baño!¨

Something that Howard said the afternoon before the 5th session stayed with me and actually became the core of my experience in the ceremony.  ¨No matter how relaxed you are, you can always relax a little more.¨

I´m not sure even what it referred to, but my mind keyed in on it and even before I drank my little cup of jungle juice (as my mind recalled the body memories of how vile the stuff tasted), I began to relax into it and put forth a sincere conscious effort to avoid any sort of judgement.  ANY.  so the vile taste of the ayahuasca became simply a flavor, neither good or bad. just a sensation. And it went down without so much as a flinch.

So the experience went... any time I found myself breathing a heavy sigh, i knew I was making a judgement and holding on, so I released the judgement and relaxed.  release and relax. release and relax.   At one point, I was so relaxed I thought that I might actually pour myself through the webbing in the chair, like jello.

Anyway, the experience continued to get even better... just pure sweetness and love.  I died three times... it seemed to be important that I go through the process more than once, but because I was so relaxed, the experience was one of sweetness and floating into death instead of the violent surrender that some of my compatriots had to endure the previous session.

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you thank you thank you.